Chapter VII: Part 7

Harry's pocket-book--the familiar old pocket-book! It fell apart in her hands. A portrait.... Her own face looked out on her with serious girl's eyes. She flung it from her: she had nothing in common with that creature. Then she caught it up again and kissed the worn leather with wild passion. Dear fingers had touched it. He had worn it, who knows, over his dear heart.... Plans, service notes--"range to the shoulder of the North Bluff works out at 1300." Lists of stores, calculations of stores and rations, gone over and over again. Oh, misery, there is sorrow beyond what human strength can bear! To think of him in these sordid straits of hunger, to stay on that thought is more than she can do and live. And she cannot die yet: she must know first.

Ah! a letter, still in its envelope inviolate, addressed to Mrs. Harry English. Not his the hand. Oh, then, it is that he is dead now indeed! Broken woman with her belated grief, what wonder that her brain should work confusedly!

It was Mrs. English in very truth--fresh widowed, her boding heart telling her, but too surely, what last bitter detail she would find in this stranger's letter--who broke the seal at last after so many years.

DEAR MRS. ENGLISH,--We have wired to your friends to break the
bad news to you. You will want to hear all about it. I suppose
you know by this time, broadly speaking, what happened to us.
We were hard pressed. The relief force--worn out by the march
across the snows--was not strong enough to take the hill, which
was the key of the position, unassisted. It was agreed that we
should co-operate. English insisted on taking charge of the
party. We all knew it was a forlorn-hope business, and the men
had a superstitious feeling about him; with any one else they
would not have gone with the same spirit. It was an hour before
dawn, and the fight went on till sunrise. We--such of us as
were left in the fort, hardly an able-bodied man except myself
and Whiteley, the surgeon--did not know which way it was going
with us till dawn, when we found the enemy in retreat. Then our
men and the relief party came straggling in; none of us were up
to pursuit, and we began to count our loss. English had saved
us with his life. He had succeeded in capturing and holding the
post on the hill, completely occupying the enemy's attention,
until the guns of the relief force came down upon their flank.
It was carried through by a stroke of genius, but it was
absolute sacrifice. Only a third of his splendid fellows have
come back to us--and English is gone.

His jemadar saw him fall (he swears it must have been instant
death) amid the Ghasi swordsmen, and then in the rush they were
swept apart. Mrs. English, you have the right to know the
complete truth. We have been unable to recover any of our dead
or wounded. The enemy carried them away; and, as we watched
them in their retreat, we saw them strip the dead and roll them
over the crags into the rapids. We shall not have Harry
English's grave--but would he have desired a better one than the
great cold mountain waters, in the desolate valley, utmost
boundary of that Empire whose honour he died for? He will live
in the hearts of his countrymen. To you I dare not offer any
other words of consolation. What he was to us, these days of
trial, I have no power to express. Without him we should have
come badly through this business. What he was to me--forgive
me, I can write no more. All his papers I have placed together.
They will be brought to you with this letter. His last letter
to his mother was mailed to England.--Yours truly,

RAYMOND BETHUNE.

Rosamond stared. Raymond Bethune.--So it was he who wrote. She had not recognised his hand.

Stupidly she sat, stunned. Then the wave gathered, reared itself and broke upon her, overwhelming, drenching her with waters of irremediable bitterness! Dead--he was dead--she had lost him. He had suffered hunger and thirst and fever, and longing for her and anguish of mind, and doubt; he had been hacked with swords, his beloved body had been dragged over the rocks, flung bleeding, perhaps still quick, into the swirling flood. But all this was nothing. All they had worked upon him was nothing compared with what she, his chosen one, had done! Faithless, betrayer of his love, what part could Lady Gerardine have with anything of Harry English? Even Bethune, even that cold, hard man, had been one with the old stricken mother in loyalty of grief. "He will live in the hearts of his countrymen." It was his wife who had thrust him away among the dead, to be forgotten.

"It is we who make our dead dead." For her now he must always be dead. On earth and in heaven alike she had lost him. What meeting could there ever be for her and him again, since she had given herself to another man; since she had willed him dead, in her cowardice; in base self-indulgence refused her soul to the dear and holy sorrow of his living memory?

She flung herself face downwards among his papers. No tears came to her relief, no blessed unconsciousness. For her there was no God; for her there could be no heaven, naught was left her but the hell of her own making!

*CHAPTER XV*

Three times since that first fruitless summons to lunch had Aspasia come to the door of the attic. Twice, with the engaging practicality of her nature, she had carried up a little tray. She would fain minister to a mind diseased, with soup or with tea, knowing no better medicine. Each time, however, her gentle knocking, her coaxing representations through the keyhole, had produced not the least response. But the girl's ear had caught the rustling of papers within; and, satisfied that there was nothing worse than one of her aunt's moods to account for the persistently closed door and the silence, she had withdrawn with her offering, more irritated, perhaps, than anxious.

Now, however, as she knocked and rattled at the handle and implored admittance, there was a double pressure of anxiety upon her; the demands of unexpected events without, and a new, deathlike stillness within.

"Oh, dear," cried Baby, "what shall I do, what shall I do!"

She thought of summoning Major Bethune to her aid; but shrank, with the repugnance of some unformed womanly reticence.

"I must get in," she said to herself, desperately; and flung all her young vigour against the door. To her joy, the socket of the bolt yielded with unexpected ease. She fell almost headlong into the room, and then stood aghast. There lay Lady Gerardine, prone on the floor, among the strewn papers, the flickering candle by her side.

For a second the girl's heart stopped beating. The next moment she could have cried aloud with joy. Rosamond had not even fainted; but, as she raised herself and Baby saw the face that was turned to her, the girl realised that here was hardly an occasion for thanksgiving; and her own lips, trembling upon a tremendous announcement, were struck silent.

"Oh, my poor darling!" cried she, catching the stricken woman in her arms, "what is it?"

With a moan, as of physical pain, Rosamond's head dropped on her niece's shoulder.

"You're cold, you're worn out," said the girl. "Those dreadful letters, and this place like an ice-house! Aunt Rosamond, darling----" She chafed the cold hands vigorously as she spoke. "You must be starved, too. Oh, and I don't know how to tell you! Let me bring you down to your own room--there's tea waiting for you, and such a fire! Aunt Rosamond, you must rouse yourself. Here, I'll put these papers by."

The one thing that could stir Rosamond from her torpor of misery was this.

"Don't touch them," she said. Her toneless voice seemed to come from depths far distant. She laid her wasted hands over the scattered sheets, drawing them together to her bosom; and then, on her knees, fell again into the former state of oblivion of all but her absorbing pain.

Frenzied with impatience and the urgency for action, Baby now blurted out the news which the sight of Lady Gerardine's drawn countenance caused her to withhold:

"Runkle's come!"

The woman kneeling half turned her head. A change passed over her rigid countenance.

"Yes; Runkle's here," went on Baby, ruthlessly, raising her voice as if speaking to the deaf. "Uncle Arthur is here; he has come over in a motor--a party of them. Aunt Rosamond, your husband is here."

A long shudder shook the kneeling figure. It was as if life returned to its work; and, returning, trembled in nausea from the task before it. A deep sullen colour began to creep into Lady Gerardine's white cheek. She bent over the gaping box and dropped into it her armful of papers. Then she looked over her shoulder at Aspasia, and drew down the lid.

"My husband! ... My husband is dead," she said.

The girl's blood ran cold. Had the hidden terror taken shape at last? The words were mad enough; yet it was the fierce light in Rosamond's eyes that seemed most to signal danger.

But Aspasia was not timid, and she was not imaginative. And Lady Gerardine's next action, the cry which escaped her lips, at once pierced to every tender helpful instinct of the girl's heart, and banished the paralysing fear.

"Oh, Baby," cried she, springing to her feet and stretching out her arms in hopeless appeal, "what have I done? What is to become of me?"

Once more Baby's arms were about her. Baby, great in the emergency, was pouring forth consolation, expostulation, counsel.

"Look here, Aunt Rosamond; it's really only for a little while; you'll have to show, you know, but they can't stay. Their blessed motor broke down, or something, and they ought to have been here hours ago. Now they can only stop for a cup of tea, if they are to get back to-night. You must just pull yourself together for half an hour--just half an hour, Aunt Rosamond! Leave me to manage. All you've got to do is to smile a bit, and let Runkle do the talking. They want us all to go to Melbury Towers to-morrow, Major Bethune and everybody. That's what they've come over for."

Lady Gerardine put the girl from her roughly.

"I'm not going there," she said.

"Of course not," said wise Baby, soothing. "But we must put him off somehow. To-morrow you can be ill or something. Do, Aunt Rosamond, darling, be sensible. Don't make things harder. For Heaven's sake don't let us have a row--that would be worse than anything! I know you're not well enough to stand poor old Runkle just now; it's your dear nerves. But just for half an hour--for the sake of being free of him. Oh, Aunt, you used to be so patient! Come, they'll be in upon us in one minute. Luckily they've all been busy over that machine, pulling its inside to pieces. Come to your room, now, and have your tea and tidy a bit. And I'll keep them at bay, till you are ready."

She half dragged, half led Lady Gerardine to the warm shelter of her own room. She stood over her till the prescribed tea had been taken; then, hearing the Old Ancient House echo to the footsteps of its unexpected visitors, she announced her intention of running to look after them.

"I've told Runkle already that you've a beastly headache," she cried, with her cheerful mendacity. "I won't let him up here, never fear; but I'll come and fetch you down, when I've started them on Mary's scones. If you just do your hair a bit--Lord, there goes six o'clock, they can't stay long, that's one blessing!"

Left to herself, with the stimulating comfort of the tea doing its work upon her weary frame, Lady Gerardine viewed her position with some return to calmness. This odious burden that she had laid upon herself, she must lift it awhile once more; and it should be for the last time. She who for years had played the hypocrite placidly would play it now again though the tempest raged within her. For the future she must have time. Before she could act, she must think. For this present sordid moment--the child was right--there must be no scandal; above all not here, in this sacred house of his, where even she, unworthy, had recognised the presence of the dead.

She sat down before the mirror and shook her long hair loose.

The sound of voices, of laughter, rose confusedly from the drawing-room below. She set her teeth as the well-known note of Sir Arthur's insistent bass distinguished itself from the others. How had she endured it for five years?

Doors were slammed, and then, the light thud of Baby's footsteps scurrying hither and thither like a rabbit; her calls in the passage brought a vague smile to Lady Gerardine's lips.

Up to a certain point only is the human organisation capable of pain. After that comes the respite of numbness. Rosamond was numbed now. Mind and heart alike refused to face the point of agony; only the most trivial thoughts could occupy her brain. Idly she pulled the comb through the warm gold of her hair; idly she weighed which would be the least effort to her weary limbs, that of twisting up those tresses herself or rising to ring the bell for Jani.

Presently her eyes wandered to the portrait that hung just over her dressing-table. She shifted both candlesticks to one side to throw their light full upon it.

Baby came in as upon the wings of a gust of wind.

"The most dreadful thing," she panted, in a flurried whisper; arrested herself in her canter across the room, and plunged back to shut the open door; "my poor, poor darling: they're going to stay the night!"

Lady Gerardine flung apart the girl's arms as if the embrace strangled her. Their eyes met in the mirror. Then the woman shot a glauce round the room, a glance so desperate that the other, child as she was, could not but understand.

"Oh, you're safe--safe for the moment anyhow," she blurted out; "I've been lying like Old Nick. I said you'd just taken a phenacetin, and that if you were disturbed now you wouldn't be fit to lift your head all the evening. But you'll have to come down to dinner; you can get bad again afterwards, can't you? Runkle's quite injured already. He's been having such a jolly time lately; he thinks it harder than ever on him that you should still be ill. And Lady Aspasia----"

"Lady Aspasia," repeated the other, mechanically.

"Yes, that abominable woman with the ridiculous name, she's there! And Dr. Châtelard; you remember, the pudgy Frenchman? We've got to house them all somewhere, and to feed them. It's desperate----"

Aspasia checked her speech; for Lady Gerardine had risen from her chair with an abrupt movement and stood staring blankly into the mirror.

Poor Aspasia had had sufficient experience already of her aunt's moods, but this singular attitude affected the girl in so unpleasant a fashion that she felt as if she ought to shake the staring woman, pinch her, shout at her, do anything to call her out of this deadly torpor!

"Aunt Rosamond," she cried, raising her voice sharply in the hope of catching the wandering attention, "I've told Sarah about the rooms, and ordered fires to be lit; and I've seen Mary about the dinner. The poor Old Ancient House, Runkle's crabbing it already like anything! But we'll show them it can be hospitable, won't we?"

"Yes," said Rosamond, "yes." The hectic colour deepened on her cheek. The widened unseeing pupil contracted with a flash of answering light. "Baby, you're a good child. It shall give the right hospitality--his house."

Aspasia drew a deep sigh of relief.

"Mary thinks she can have dinner in an hour," she said. "Oh Lord, what a piece of business! And--and you'll come down, won't you?"

She rubbed her coaxing cheek against her aunt's shoulder.

"Yes. I'll come down."

"I'll dress you," said Baby, her light heart rising buoyantly under what seemed such clearing skies. She nodded. "Oh, dear, I've such a desperate lot of things to do! There's the wine." She slapped her forehead. "I'd forgotten the wine." And the door closed violently behind her tempestuous petticoat. As a companion to a neurasthenic patient Miss Cuningham no doubt had her weak points.

* * * * *

Rosamond sank slowly back in her chair; her hand fell inertly before her.

When the girl returned after an hour's exceeding activity the elder woman's attitude had not altered by a fraction. But the exigency of time and social requirements left Aspasia no leisure now to linger over doubts and fears. Her own cheeks were pink from rapid ablutions; her crisp hair stood out more vigorously than ever after determined manipulation. She pealed a bell for Jani, and fell herself upon the golden mass covering Lady Gerardine's shoulders, her chattering tongue in full swing:

"Of course, the poor wretches are in their motor garments. (You never saw anything like Runkle in a pony skin and goggles. He's more motist than the chauffeur.) So I've only just stuck on a blouse, you see. But I've determined you shall be beautiful in a tea-gown. Lord, I'd no idea Lady Aspasia was so tremendous! I want you simply to be beautiful!"

Deft hands twisted and coiled.

"It was Runkle, you know, who broke the motor: he insisted on driving and jammed them sideways in a gate. He's awfully pleased with himself. It's Lady Aspasia's motor. She calls Runkle, Arty: what do you think of that? Ah, here's Jani. Which shall it be--the white and gold? I love the white and gold, Aunt Rosamond."

"Black--black," said Rosamond.

*CHAPTER XVI*

Sir Arthur came down the shallow oaken stairs, after his necessarily exiguous toilet, a prey to distinct dudgeon. He had been whirled away upon this expedition by the impetuosity of Lady Aspasia, somewhat against his will in the first place. That he, Sir Arthur Gerardine, should have to come in quest of his wife, instead of the latter obediently hieing her at his summons, was a breach of the world's decorum as he understood it personally. That his wife should have a headache and have partaken of phenacetin coincidently upon his arrival; that she should evidently (and by a thousand tokens the unwelcome fact was forced upon him) be still in her uncomfortable hyperæsthetic neurasthenic state of health was a want of consideration for his feelings of which no dutiful spouse should have been guilty; and, moreover, this condition of things was woefully destructive of all comfort in the connubial state. He positively dared not insist upon seeing her at once. Absurd as the situation was, he must await her pleasure; for, with Lady Aspasia present, the danger of fainting fits or hysterics could not be risked. Not that he wanted to blame Rosamond unduly, poor thing; but it really was not what he had a right to expect.

These natural feelings of displeasure were heightened by the trifling deprivations caused by his stranded condition. He could not feel his usual superb and superior self coming down to dinner in a serge suit, his feet in heavy outdoor shoes. Then, the poor surroundings, the very feeling of the noisy oak boards instead of a pile carpet under these same objectionable soles, offended him at every step. He was ashamed that Lady Aspasia should find such a "pokey" place. It was by no means a fit habitation for the wife of Sir Arthur Gerardine.

He had hurried down before the others, impelled by his restless spirit. The hall was empty. He took a bustling survey. How faded was the strip of Turkey carpet! God bless his soul, how worm-eaten were those square oak chests, presses, and cupboards, and how clumsy--only fit for a cottage! And that portrait, just under the lamp--poor English, he supposed? A regular daub, anyhow; why, he could see the brush marks! He wondered Rosamond could have it up.

He opened a door on the right and peeped in. All was dark within. He was assailed by an odour of tobacco smoke, and sniffed with increasing discontent. This visit of Bethune's, now, which had prevented Rosamond from hurrying to his side, was there not something irregular, not to say ... well, fishy about the situation? It was odd, now he came to think of it, that Rosamond should never have mentioned the identity of her guest in any of her numerous telegrams, in spite of his repeated questions. He himself, in the midst of his important social, he might almost say political engagements (since a member of the Cabinet had been included in the recent house-party at Melbury Towers), had not had leisure to examine into it more closely hitherto. But now he flushed to the roots of the silvering hair, that still curled luxuriantly round his handsome head, as he recalled Lady Aspasia Melbury's loud laugh and meaning cry when Baby had performed the necessary introduction upon their recent arrival: "So you're the excuse!" ... A mere Major of Guides! A fellow he had never really liked, after all!

Sir Arthur turned on his heel. In thought, he was already rapidly ascending the stairs, on a voyage of discovery to Rosamond's room. Nerves or no nerves, there are matters that require immediate attention. It was intolerable to think that Lady Gerardine, that his wife, should be guilty of the unpardonable lapse of placing herself--however unwittingly, of course--into a false position. It never even dawned upon him--to do him justice--to suspect her of any deeper offence.

As he paused, inflating his chest on the breath of his wrath, some one, with a quick, clean tread, came running along an outer passage, and flung open the swing door that led into the hall--flung it back with the shove of a broad shoulder.

Sir Arthur turned again, and had a moment of amazement before his fluttered wits remembered the existence of his own particular secretary.

Muhammed Saif-u-din stood filling up the doorway. His red turban nearly touching the lintel, a crusty bottle in either hand, he was staring at Sir Arthur, to the full as intently as Sir Arthur stared at him.

"Oh, it's you, is it?" then cried, testily, the mighty historian of the Northern Provinces. "What the devil is the man doing with the wine," thought he, flaming inwardly, "when he ought to be busy on--on my book?" In his mind's eye Sir Arthur never beheld Muhammed but toiling with pen and ink upon the great work. "Well," he went on aloud, "I hope you've got a lot to show me!"

"Excuse, your Excellency," said Muhammed. He drew himself together with a little effort, stepped across to the open dining-room door, and laid down his burden. Sir Arthur followed him, hot on the scent of the new grievance. Upon his word, everybody was off his head! Mohammed's manner, his secretary's manner, was downright cool--cool!

"I don't think I engaged you for this sort of business, Muhammed," said he.

Muhammed, with the point of a corkscrew just applied to the first bottle, paused and looked reflectively at the speaker. Then the points of his upturned moustaches quivered. He laid down bottle and corkscrew and made a profound salaam.

"Excuse, Excellency," he said again. His fine bronzed countenance was subtly afire with some spirit of mocking irony. "There was a fear that your Excellency should be ill served in this poor house!"

Well, well, this was laudable, of course! Yes, even the babu felt that here was no fit entertainment for a Lieutenant-Governor. But nevertheless, intangibly, Sir Arthur found something disquieting in that smile, in the dark eye that fixed him. Vaguely a sense as of something mysterious and relentless came upon him. "You never know where to have them," he thought to himself.

In the pomp of his own palace, surrounded by scores of servitors of his own magnificence, he had not given a thought, hitherto, to the possibility of treachery from the Indian subject. There he felt himself too great a man to be touched; but here, in this desolate house on the downs! ... A small cold trickle ran down his spine. It was queer that the creature should have been so eager to come to England! ... But the next instant the natural man asserted himself. Sir Arthur would certainly have been no coward even in actual danger; he was far too sure of himself to entertain idle fears.

"I shall see you to-morrow," he said imperiously, and left the room.

A whirlwind of silks upon the stairs heralded Aspasia. She caught her uncle by the arm and dragged him into the drawing-room.

"Pray, pray, my dear Aspasia; you are really too impetuous!" cried he, disengaging himself testily. The familiarity which in India had added a piquancy to his sense of importance was here a want of tact. "The country has not improved your manners, my dear," he went on, taking up his place on the hearthrug and sweeping the room with contemptuous gaze. "It's high time to get you out of this."

Miss Aspasia's ready lips had already parted upon a smart retort when the sound of Lady Aspasia's voice, uplifted from without, prevented the imminent skirmish. Her ladyship was evidently addressing Dr. Châtelard, for those strident tones were conveying, in highly British accents, words of what she supposed to be French:

"Drôle petit trou, pensez-vous pas?"

"Ah, but extremely interesting," responded the _globe trotteur_, in his precise English. He always obstinately answered in English Lady Aspasia's less perfect but equally obstinate French.

The two entered together, she towering over him, as might a frigate over a sloop.

Lady Aspasia Melbury was a handsome woman of the "horsey" type. A favourite, even in royal circles, her praise ran in men's mouths expressively as "a real good sort." A woman kind to others, with the ease afforded her by splendid health, unlimited means, and an assured position. Modern to the very last minute, frank beyond the point of offence, she might be cited as one of those rare beings to whom life is almost an absolute success; the more safely, perhaps, because most of her ideals (if ideals they could be called) were of the most practical description. Yet life had failed Lady Aspasia upon one point--she had had one unsatisfied desire; her youth had held a brief romance, interrupted by a _mariage de raison_; and when her millionaire had left her free, she had looked, with the confidence of her nature, to the instant renewal of the broken idyll. But here it was that fate had played its single scurvy trick upon the woman.

Arthur Gerardine, the once handsome, penniless lad, the now still handsome, distinguished man, who had remained bachelor all these years (she had fondly hoped for her sake), had married--a year after her own widowhood--married, not the ready Lady Aspasia, but a poor unknown widow out in India. Lady Aspasia's solitary unrealised ideal, then, was Sir Arthur Gerardine. In what strange nests will not some ideals perch! And unattainable it seemed likely to remain.

As she now stood, her large, bold eyes roaming quizzically round the faded room--which seemed to hold her ultra-modern presence with amazement, to echo her loud laugh with a kind of protest, like a simple dame of olden times raising mittened hands of rebuke--no one would have guessed that she was inwardly eaten with impatience to behold her rival, to know at last the creature who had supplanted her.

"It is, indeed, a poor little place," said Sir Arthur, bustling forward to advance a chair. "I had no idea it was such a tumble-down old house. We must get rid of it as soon as possible."

"Ah, but pardon!" interposed Dr. Châtelard. "It is old if you will, Sir Gerardine, but thereby it is rich. Nowhere else have I so felt the unpurchasable riches of past time. I am charmed to have come here. After your gorgeous Melbury, the piquancy of this antique abode of gentility is to me delicious!"

"Ah, well," said Sir Arthur, magnificently, "I don't say it has not got a sort of picturesqueness and all that, but it's not what we are accustomed to in England, you know. Comfort, Châtelard, the land of comfort, we say. You don't know what it is in your country. But in the good old days--people did not understand it either, here, you see. Look at that chair, now. As hard as nails, eh, Lady Aspasia? I dare say a collector or somebody might like it. What do you say--Chippendale, eh? Elizabethan? Well, it's all the same thing. It's not my sort, anyhow. I shall sell it all, bag and baggage."

"Sell the Old Ancient House!" interrupted the younger Aspasia, hotly. The aggravation her uncle had ever the talent of awakening in her was now in full force. "I think you'll find there will have to be two words to that, dear Runkle. Aunt Rosamond's devoted to it."

Sir Arthur inflated his chest.

"My dear Raspasia!" ...

There was concentrated acrimony in his accents. The elder lady scented storm, and storm was not the atmosphere she liked.

"I declare, Arty," she said, "you made me jump. I thought those stern tones were directed to me. There are two Aspasias here--Docteur Châtelard--elle est ma--namesake--appellée après moi, ou comment vous dites! Come here, namesake, and let's have a look at you."

Aspasia fell on her knees beside the imposing tailor-made figure, and raised her pretty, pert face--pinker than usual, with a variety of emotions--for inspection. M. Châtelard put up his eyeglass to look down benevolently upon her. The English Miss had yet scarcely come under his microscope; but he quite saw that she would be a fascinating study. He now thought the contrast between the two Aspasias somewhat cruel. "Fraîche comme une rose, la petite. Ronde comme une caille, mutine comine la fauvette--Mais l'autre--oh lala, quelle carcasse!"

The fine lines of Lady Aspasia's anatomy--not inharmonious, but over-prominent, it must be owned, from the hardening effects of a too great devotion to sport--appealed not at all to the temperament of the French critic.

"I don't know what _you_ think of your godparents," Miss Aspasia was remarking, with the gusto of a well-established grievance, "but I know what I think ought to be done to mine for giving me such an i-di-o-tic name."

She rolled her eyes meaningly towards Sir Arthur. Lady Aspasia pinched the tilted chin not unkindly, while her loud laugh rang out.

"And you won't ever be able to change it, either, that's the worst of it," she cried. "Thank your stars, anyhow, it can't brand you all your life, as it does me, like an ugly handle to a fine jug--aha! By the way, Arty, you'll have to do something to help this poor child to change the Cuningham, anyhow. She won't do it down here."

"I don't want to change that at all," cried Baby. Her quick ear had caught the sound of Bethune's tread on the threshold. She jerked her chin from Lady Aspasia's fingers and jumped to her feet. "I've never seen any one whose name I thought better worth having than Cuningham yet."

In her young pride she unconsciously flung an angry glance upon the newcomer for appearing at just the wrong moment--a glance which Lady Aspasia caught, and from which she immediately drew conclusions.

These conclusions tallied to a nicety with some others that Lady Aspasia, not without a certain satisfaction, had been forming of late regarding the Gerardine _ménage_.

Lady Gerardine had shown an unmistakable disinclination to join her husband after a long absence; she had suddenly ceased corresponding with him except by telegram; and in these telegrams the name of the visitor whose presence was offered as excuse had been unaccountably omitted.

"Poor child," cried the woman of fashion, with her crow of laughter and the brutal outspokenness of her circle; "she's about tired of playing chaperon here! Never mind, my dear, your time will come by-and-by. 'Nous avons changé tout cela,' as M. Châtelard would say; and a jolly good thing, too. We are only proper in our teens, and after that we can have a high old time till we are eighty. C'est ce que nous appellons un score, M. Châtelard."

"I think, Lady Melbury," said M. Châtelard, suavely, "that I should prefer to watch the high young time."

But, as he spoke, his eye was on Sir Arthur; and from thence it went with eager curiosity to Bethune. He was rubbing mental hands of glee. What stroke of superlative fortune had landed him in the very middle, in the great act, he felt sure, of that drama, the beginning of which he had noted with such interest in far-off India? The poor, good, trusting Sir Gerardine, who had ordered his wife to fall in with her lover's scheme, with such touching--such imbecile--confidence! Ah, but he was beginning to suspect; he had winced even now at the words of yonder impossible female. And that other? Why, it was clear that the Major had encompassed his design--but up to what point? That relentless, impenetrable mask was as hard to decipher as ever. It could not be said that he looked like the fortunate lover, but neither did he look like one who would spare or give way. "It is a nature of granite," thought the Frenchman, as he watched Bethune's deliberate movements about the room. "Successful or still plotting, the advent of the husband at this moment--what a situation! And yet, behold the lover; immovable, implacable. It will be tragic!"

"She's tired of acting chaperon." Sir Arthur let the words pass because they were spoken by Lady Aspasia. But they had pierced right through his armour of self-satisfaction and self-security. The new grievance became again unpleasantly active.

Rosamond had indubitably been incredibly, reprehensibly foolish. No one had a right so to neglect the ordinary conventions. He would have to speak to her very seriously, by-and-by.

"What can your aunt be about, my dear Aspasia?" cried he, impatiently. "I think I must really go up and bring her down, if you will just direct me to her room."

That he should have to ask to be directed to his wife's room; that, having been a couple of hours in the same house, they should not yet have met--it was preposterous, intolerable, it was most inconsiderate of Rosamond! It was an abuse of his chivalrous solicitude for her!

"Oh, I'll run up!" cried Baby, anxiously.

"Here is Lady Gerardine herself," said Major Bethune's calm voice. He stepped to the door and opened it.

*CHAPTER XVII*

Up went Lady Aspasia's eyeglasses. Often had she pictured to herself the woman who had "cut her out." She vowed she knew the type: "men are so silly!"--the Simla belle, ill-painted, ill-dyed, with the airs of importance of the Governor's wife badly grafted upon the second-rate manners of the Indian officer's widow.

As Rosamond came into the room, her long black draperies trailing, her radiant head held high, a geranium flush upon cheeks and lips, Lady Aspasia's glasses fell upon her knees with a click; then she lifted them quickly to stare afresh. She forgot to rise from her chair; she forgot even to criticise.

"I'm done for--I'm stumped!" cried the poor sporting lady, in her candid soul. "It's all u-p! Lord, what a fool I have been!"

Sir Arthur, filling his lungs with a breath of righteous reprehension, looked; and exhaled it in a puff of triumph. A beautiful creature. By George, the most beautiful creature he had ever seen! And she was his--his wife--Lady Gerardine. The old glorious self-satisfaction rushed back upon him. How well he had chosen, after all! A little neurasthenia might well be forgiven to one who so superlatively vindicated his taste. It was a glorious moment, this, of presenting the shining star of his selection to the poor old flame.

"Sac-à-papier! ... Quand une anglaise se mêle d'être belle, elle ne fait pas les choses à moitié."

Dr. Châtelard adjusted his spectacles. This was the woman whom the astute Bethune, under the purple Indian sky, had accused in his hearing of being cold. Cold? Just heavens--what a bloom, what a flower! Ah! the answer to that question he had been asking himself with devouring curiosity ever since his recognition of the manor-house guest, was here given him without a word. The poor--the poor Sir Gerardine! Here was what he, Châtelard, with his enormous experience, had securely predicted. _Voici la conflagration!_

Not a jewel did Rosamond wear; but her soft draperies were strung with long lines of jet, so that, with each movement, subdued fires seemed to flash about her. The fever colour in her cheeks, the fever light in her eyes, lent her usually pale and pensive beauty an unnatural brilliancy. All in the room were unwittingly struck into immobility, that their every energy might be given to so rare a sight.

Raymond Bethune flung but one look, then dropped his eyes.

"He is afraid to betray himself," thought the shrewd Châtelard (his own inquisitive eye was everywhere); for once he was right in the midst of his wild surmises.

Even Baby stared, open-mouthed.

Rosamond advanced, looked round with unseeing glances. "I am here. What is wanted of me?" she seemed to ask, vaguely.

"Painted!" cried Lady Aspasia to herself, her gaze fixed hungrily. "No"--for here Sir Arthur bent to kiss his wife, and the scarlet cheek turned to him was suddenly blanched--"No. What's the matter with the creature? She looks as if she were going to faint."

But Lady Aspasia was in no mood to follow the fertile train of thought suggested by Lady Gerardine's evident emotion under her husband's caress; her own emotions were for the moment unwontedly acute and painful. Sir Arthur's fond and proud look at his beautiful consort struck the old love with a stab. She was not even regretted!

"My dear," said Sir Arthur, one of his wife's cold hands in his, "here is Lady Aspasia, of whom you have heard so much."

Then Lady Aspasia remembered her manners, and rose to greet her hostess. As she did so, she caught the reflection both of herself and of Lady Gerardine side by side in the mirror over the chimney-piece. Both tall women, their heads were nearly on a level; but between the two faces what a chasm! How could the old love be regretted? She was not even regrettable.

The elder woman gave a harsh laugh.

"Awfully glad," she muttered, for once at a loss for words. "She's got it all," she was saying to herself. "Youth and beauty--and Arty. Poor Arty; she does not care a snap of her finger for him, and Heaven knows what's on her conscience!"

"You remember Dr. Châtelard, my love," proceeded Sir Arthur. M. Châtelard made his preliminary French bow, and respectfully took possession of Rosamond's icy fingers. While his lips were forming an elegant little speech of greeting, while he was assuring her ladyship of his acute sense of privilege at being under her roof, his swift thoughts were busy on fresh conclusions. He looked down at the pale hand, the death-like touch of which lay inert in his palm, and up at the hectic loveliness of the face.

"C'est qu'elle est malade--tres malade même!" he said to himself, with sudden gravity. "Ah, she is not one to whom sin is easy! The young man may remember he was warned." And, as he gave his arm to his hostess to lead her into the dining-room, he was perhaps the only member of the company to realise that Lady Gerardine had not so far uttered a single word. "This will end in tragedy," he told himself again; and the ring of Sir Arthur's laugh, the jovial content of his voice behind him, struck the Frenchman's ear, mere student of psychology as he was, with an actual sensation of pain.

As they crossed the hall they passed the figure of the Indian secretary standing motionless, with folded arms, at the further end. The man salaamed as they went by, and M. Châtelard felt Lady Gerardine shudder.

"Does the Eastern inspire you with repugnance?" queried he, as they entered the dining-room.

"With horror," she answered, in a deep, vibrating voice; "with hatred."

The note of her passion was so incongruous to the occasion that the traveller found nothing to reply.

Once seated at the table, however, he set himself, with tactful assiduity, to cover a situation which tended to become awkward, not to say impossible. Fortunately, too, both the Aspasias kept up an almost violent conversation, and between them Sir Arthur was allowed very little time for reflection or observation.

Baby had purposely placed a large erection of ferns and flowers in the centre of the table. Sir Arthur had to peer round if he wanted to catch his wife's eyes. The four candles, in their red shades, gave but faint illumination. The dark oak panelling absorbed the side lights. It was only to Bethune on the one hand, to M. Châtelard on the other, that Rosamond's persistent mutism, her abstraction, became obtrusive.

"You have, I fear, small appetite, madam," said the Frenchman at last, with kindly anxiety, unable himself to enjoy the excellent plain fare provided by old Mary while this lovely dumb creature beside him shuddered from the food on her plate, much as she had shuddered from the sight of the Pathan in the hall.

She turned her eyes, unnaturally bright in their haggard setting, slowly upon him, as if aware that he had spoken, and yet unable to grasp his meaning.

"You do not eat," he repeated, with more explicitness. On the other side of him Lady Aspasia, wheeling round from her absorbing conversation with Sir Arthur, caught the words. She looked curiously at Lady Gerardine.

"We have taken away her appetite," she cried, in her literal French. "Too bad--and such a good dinner, too! I am ravenous still, in spite of the scones." And she fell with zest upon the chop before her.

Jealousy might beset her, and angry suspicion of the woman who had supplanted her, but the business of the moment for Lady Aspasia was dinner.

"Capital wine," said Sir Arthur. "I had no idea, my dear Rosamond, that you could give us anything like this." He peered round the chrysanthemums at her, and received again the agreeable shock of her beauty in its new garb of colour. "I shall have to visit the cellar to-morrow. It's quite old wine, 'pon my soul. Châtelard," and he burst into his ultra-Parisian French, "you maintain a pretty fashion in your country, which we have given up in ours. Let us clink glasses."

There was a flutter of napkins, an exchange of salutations. M. Châtelard rose, bowed his close-cropped grey head, and reached over his brimming glass. When it had touched Sir Arthur's, he turned and held it out, for the same ceremony, towards Lady Gerardine. Again she merely lifted her eyes towards him. He sank back on his chair and drank hastily.

"_Saperlotte_--she looks at one like a suffering dog.... And that fellow opposite, with his face of marble! He drinks, that one, if he eats as little as she. And Sir Gerardine, the poor husband, so touching in his joy of family affection--and the little Miss, so innocent and gay--and the storm gathering--gathering! I could almost wish myself out of this, after all. The interest is undeniable, but the situation lacks comfort!"

"Look," said Aspasia, suddenly, in a low tone to Major Bethune, and laying her hand on his sleeve; "look, now that the door is open! Muhammed has been in the hall all the time of dinner. He's listening to us and watching."

"Muhammed?" echoed Major Bethune, starting slightly. His thoughts had been fixed so intently upon a painful and tangled speculation that he had some difficulty in bringing them back to Aspasia and her fears.

"Yes," urged the girl, "Muhammed. Don't you see? There he is." She dropped her voice still lower. "I do think he's got his eye on Runkle. Oh, dear, I don't believe I ever knew what it was to be frightened before I came to this dreadful Old Ancient House!"

Bethune glanced at her paling cheek, and then out through the half-open door into the hall, where the figure of the Pathan might indeed be perceived leaning against the staircase post in his former attitude of composed watchfulness.

"Don't be frightened," said the officer of Guides, smiling, "the Eastern are as curious as children, for all their grand impassive airs; and this very fine westernised specimen has come to stare at us, and despise us in the depths of his soul, which is as savage, no doubt, as that of his brethren, in spite of his veneer. Besides, Miss Aspasia, he's not looking at Sir Arthur; he's looking at Lady Gerardine."

"He knows she hates him, perhaps," said Baby, with a fresh chill of apprehension. "Oh, Major Bethune, you may laugh, but I don't believe the creature's safe; and I, who thought him quite human when he helped me with the wine to-night. Fancy, I was down in the dark cellars with him!"

"Capital pheasants," said Sir Arthur; "capital."

"Lord!" cried Lady Aspasia's shrill voice; "I wish my _chef_ would only learn to make bread sauce like this."

"I hope there's another bottle up of that excellent wine," resumed the great man, genially.

"Excellent wine in very truth," echoed M. Châtelard.

Rosamond's soul sickened within her. How they ate and drank! How nauseating was the clatter of knives and forks, the clink of glasses, the fumes of wine and roast! Away, away, in the old grey fort, at the end of endless winding valleys under the snows, one was a-hungered and a-thirst.

"_We shall have to draw in our belts_," he was saying, making mock, as strong men will, of his physical pain. "_Only four dozen boxes of pea-meal and twenty bags of rice left_." ...

"_When men are slowly starved they can bear the hunger ... but thirst is an active devil_."

Oh, God, the smell of the wine--his wine--to see them drink it, laughing, while his dear lips in vain were calling out for water!

* * * * *

She felt his anguish burn in her own throat, desiccate her own mouth. Some one was speaking to her; her dry tongue clicked and could form no sound. She groped for the glass of water and lifted it to her lips, but laid it down untouched in a spasm of horror. How could she drink when he was parched?

"_Rosamond, Rosamond, when will you hold the cup for me?_" She put her hand to her throat; the room went round with her.

"You are suffering," said Bethune, leaning over to her.

His nature was all unused to introspection. By character and breeding he was given to hold in scorn all troubles that were not concrete, all conflicts conducted in those nebulous regions known as the heart or the soul. His life had been mapped out on positive lines, where right and wrong were as white and black. But, since his first meeting with Lady Gerardine, his simple ethics no longer sufficed. Not only did others discover to him desires, motives, heights and depths undreamed of in his philosophy, but he had become aware of some such forces in his own being. Like a man who first suspects within himself the germs of mortal illness, he had tried to prove their non-existence by denial. But the pain-life is too strong for human will, and the time comes when the only fight the will can make against it is that of silent endurance.

As Bethune sat by his hostess to-night, he was feeling, inarticulately, according to his nature, but acutely, not only the pain of her own situation as he dimly guessed it, but the actual physical pain of her suffering, her sick recoil from meat and bread, almost the spasm in her beautiful throat that would not let her swallow one drop of the water her fevered lips yearned for.

He spoke at last. Her dumb anguish was more than he could bear.

She inclined her head towards him. Vague at first, he saw understanding of his speech, consciousness of his presence gather into her glance; and then, something else--something, the name of which he could not formulate, even in his own mind, but which turned him cold. Suddenly she spoke, in so low a voice that the words, like some distilled poison, seemed, drop by drop, to fall straight from her lips into his heart only:

"You sit at his table, you drink his wine--you--you who took the sacrifice of his life for your own--you, who should have died, that dawn, that he might live!"

What things are these, our conventions of civilisation! There sat Bethune, in his high white collar, his stiff shirt-front, his trim black coat, listening to Lady Gerardine's mad words, one hand still on his fork, with that air of courteous attention which a man should pay to his hostess' conversation, be it on the subject of the weather or the last political conundrum.

Even had M. Châtelard adjusted his spectacles for a piercing look at the hero of his drama at that particular moment, he would have read nothing on the lean saturnine countenance. Yet had it not been for the conventions of society, how would not Raymond Bethune have answered Rosamond Gerardine? With what madness leaping to hers; with what passion, down on his knees! ... "Scorn me, for I deserve your scorn. I cast myself and my worthless life before you. Crush me into the dust if you will, only let me feel as I die the print of your foot upon me. Oh, you--most beautiful!"

"I think," said M. Châtelard, rising abruptly, "that Lady Gerardine is ill."

She was leaning back, deathly white, save for two hectic spots on each cheekbone which heightened the ghastliness of her look.

Poor Sir Arthur! It was too bad! Just as he was beginning to feel so comfortable, in spite of the pokey little place, so connubially satisfied.

"Tut, tut!" he cried, as he fussily made his way round the table. "I had hoped we had left all this in India."

Baby warded off his approach with a pointed elbow.

"Keep away, for goodness' sake, Runkle," she cried sharply. "She's faint; she wants air, that's all. Come with me, darling."

But, with unexpected strength, Lady Gerardine rose abruptly from her chair and pushed the faithful child on one side.

"I am not faint," she said. "I am not faint; I am sick. Oh ... to see you all eat and drink!" She swept the circle with her eyes; her last glance resting upon Bethune. Then, with a beating heart, he knew what it was, this new nameless thing he had never seen before in her soft eyes--it was hatred.

Her light draperies, weighted with their embroideries, swung against the chairs and the panelling of the narrow room as she hurried out from among them, head erect--scorn, abhorrence, in the very wind of her swift passage.

With a sudden dilation of the eye, Muhammed Saif-u-din watched her come. He checked a forward movement towards her, and drew himself up sharply. But as she passed him he bent his supple frame and bowed deep--deep. Suddenly aware of him, she started fiercely from the proximity.

"Out of my sight," she exclaimed, with a hoarse, deep cry, "son of treachery; his blood is still upon your hands!"

The tread of her foot, curiously heavy, resounded, measured, all up the oaken stairs.

Muhammed shot one eager glance after the retreating figure, then turned abruptly and plunged into the side passage.

In the dining-room a dead little silence had fallen. Even Aspasia dared not follow her aunt. Consternation sat upon every countenance; the eye of each guest was instinctively dropped, as if dreading to betray a thought. Dr. Châtelard drew his brow together with professional gravity.

"Insane--the poor, beautiful lady?" he asked himself. "Here is a solution, _par exemple_, that even I could not have foretold!"

"I'm afraid Lady Gerardine has found our surprise party a little overwhelming," cried Lady Aspasia at last, with her harsh laugh.

Young Aspasia began to sidle towards the door. Sir Arthur, rousing himself from his painful astonishment, arrested her in the act.

"No, my dear Aspasia," said he, not without dignity; "you remain here and entertain our guests. I will see to your aunt. You are right, Lady Aspasia, it was inconsiderate of me to take my wife by surprise in this way. The poor girl is quite overwrought. Never fear, my dear," he went on, again addressing his niece, in answer to her last feeble objection, "I shall find my way, the house is not so large. Une neurasthénie, mon cher Châtelard, compliquée d'hyperésthésie," he added, with his seraphic smile. "I do not know if your experience has brought any such cases under your notice, but, of course, you know they require careful handling."